According to Osho, “means” are the goal in seed form—never separate from the end. Each step, method, and inner attitude you use already contains and shapes the outcome. Right means are the end lived now; wrong means corrupt it. Choose awareness, love, and truth in every action, because the path itself becomes the destination.
How you walk is already where you’re going—good seeds make good fruit.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: Osho, today I would like to ask you about means and ends. Sir, in fact this issue has been very confusing for the world at large. Many scholars from the medieval period to the present have taken it up from many sides, giving different definitions and views. For instance, political philosophers have called it fundamental truth and diplomatic truth. Social philosophers have used it as ethical truth and social truth. Skeptical philosophers have spoken of actual truth and relative truth. Philosophers of science have framed it as scientific living and the art of living. But if I am not mistaken, sir, they all deal with the nine basic issues of living either subjectively or objectively, which are as follows: ...
Question: Maneesha's first question: BELOVED OSHO, ZEN SEEMS TO BE OF THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE END ALWAYS JUSTIFIES THE MEANS. WOULD YOU PLEASE COMMENT? Maneesha, there is no beginning and there is no end. There is no means and there is no goal. Zen is this declaration. Your question has been discussed by the intelligentsia down the ages. What is important? -- the means or the end? Can one achieve the right end by wrong means? Or by achieving the right end, does it matter what kind of means you use to reach it? I can discuss your question only on the margin. It has nothing to do with the anecdote we are discussing. Nobody can reach the right end without right means, because the end is nothing but the ultimate flowering of the means. The goal is nothing but the road reaching to its fullness.
And remember that life is already there, manifested. There is nothing hidden in it. In Zen they say that nothing is hidden from the very beginning, but people are trying to find it -- and it is just in front of the eyes. The meaning is here in these trees, in the life of these insects, in this railway engine, in you and me. The meaning is here. [In speaking of T'ai Chi, Osho said... ] The idea is to concentrate on the chi energy in the hara. The effort is to conserve energy that is not available to anyone else, inside a citadel in your being. It is available when you need it and it makes you tremendously powerful. [Osho went on to say that once one had accumulated energy, it then has to be shared.
Osho, what is the meaning of life? Life has no meaning by itself; we have to pour meaning into it. Life is an opportunity; if you infuse it, it becomes meaningful.
Life is like a blank canvas; paint upon it and meaning will appear. The meaning will depend on your skill. If a Picasso paints, it will be worth millions; if you paint, perhaps it won’t fetch millions. There is as much meaning in life as we put into it. Life in itself is empty; life is a bare opportunity. Possibility is all; actuality is nothing. That’s why people so often think: life is futile! What meaning? People come to me asking, “What is the meaning of life?” They are imagining that meaning is some ready‑made thing—lying around somewhere to be handed to you, like predigested food. No; meaning is born of creativity. Compose a few songs; make a sculpture; dance a little. Love a little; meditate a little. Explore; dive into inquiry. And you will find that meaning begins to arrive. And the more multidimensional your being, the more unending…
Osho, to be very frank, let me raise this question of a purposeful way of life today. To me it is not very clear: as I see, everything is in constant transformation—whether in the mineral, vegetable, or animal kingdoms, including rational beings, and in natural phenomena. I see nature ever-changing; how can our ready-made formulas serve any purpose? In fact, the purpose of life is not very clear to me. May I expect a detailed account from you on this aspect of life?
Life is its own goal, its own joy, its own meaning, its own purpose. Whoever makes life a means to something else will fall into misery. Some make life a means to money. Money can be a means for life, but life cannot be a means for money. The man who thinks that by accumulating money he has fulfilled life’s meaning is mad. Wise is the one who uses money as a companion, a support in descending into life’s depths. Life is a means neither for wealth nor for religion. There are people who make life a means for religion—worship, ritual, renunciation, austerity, sannyas—and they pour their whole life into these. They commit the same mistake the money-chaser commits. Prayer, worship, sannyas—all of these are for life. There is nothing above life—there cannot be. There is nothing for which you should be ready to lose life. Such a thing cannot…